Category: colour

  • Fleur-de-lis

    Fleur-de-lis

    The Fleur-de-lis or Iris is considered a representation of wisdom, elegance and faith in life. During the middle ages, the Iris became the emblem of the French monarchy when Louis VII adopted it as a symbol in the 12th century and the Fleur-de-lis became the accepted national symbol of the empire. As they also represent…

  • Gateway

    Gateway

    One of those locations in the campo, I frequently return to. The silhouetted gateway, solitary olive tree and distant mountains, all enhanced by the evening light just keeps on producing iconic interpretations of the Spanish countryside…

  • Neoclassical Colonnade

    Neoclassical Colonnade

    Nine of the sixteen fluted Corinthian columns fronting the Neoclassical St George’s Hall. Standing opposite Lime Street railway station in the centre of Liverpool, England, the impressive hall was designed by Harvey Lonsdale Elmes, who oversaw its construction until he died of consumption in 1847. In 1851 another architect, Sir Robert Charles Cockerell, was asked…

  • Silver Water Droplets

    Silver Water Droplets

    Low winter sunlight cutting through the trees pierces the water droplets over the fountain in the Millenium Park in Lismore in County Waterford, Ireland. The town is renowned for its early ecclesiastical history and the imposing Lismore Castle overlooking the town and the Blackwater valley.

  • Trompe l’oeil

    Trompe l’oeil

    Trompe l’oeil is French for ‘deceive the eye’; an artistic technique using realistic imagery to create an optical illusion in which the depicted objects appear to exist in three dimensions.

  • Pub Culture

    Pub Culture

    Pub culture – or bar culture, it’s not the same everywhere …

  • The Prettiest Urinals – Ever!

    The Prettiest Urinals – Ever!

    Falling into the category of “Looscapes” or bathroom photography, these splendid floral creations are to be found in the gentleman’s toilet of a garden centre (where else!) in Ireland’s County Carlow.

  • Yellow Road

    Yellow Road

    A twisty yellow farm road in the hinterland of Spain’s Andalusia. A disappearing track, the golden cornfields and slightly ominous skies, elements that reminded me of the painting, ‘Wheatfield with Crows’, by Vincent Van Gogh. According to the Van Gogh Museum, “the painting (left) is often claimed to be his last work. The menacing sky,…

  • Balance of Nature

    Balance of Nature

    “On the old door creepers spring,And a stillness reigns in the air unstirred by the beat of a wild bird’s wing.Those who see believe the old house grieves with the grief of a sentient thing.”Paraphrased from The Deserted Homestead By Edward Dyson

  • Edwardian Elegance

    Edwardian Elegance

    A rest from retail therapy on a quiet Saturday afternoon in Newcastle upon Tyne.

  • Eighty One Year Ago…

    Eighty One Year Ago…

    A recent look through the images scanned for my book, revealed one I’d forgotten about; it was a piece of calligraphy created by my father in 1940.

  • Harvest Seeker

    Harvest Seeker

    The “Harvest Seeker”, drifting in the ethereal early morning light while collecting Mariner’s Mussels from baskets moored on the sea bed of Waterford Harbour, a natural harbour at the mouth of three rivers.

  • The Orangery

    The Orangery

    Still in gardens, the elegant Orangery stands in gardens laid out in the first half of the nineteenth century at Fota House in County Cork, another house with a long history.

  • The Potting Shed

    The Potting Shed

    Appearing forgotten and neglected in a corner of a walled garden, the old shed is a fitting metaphor for the latter years of Strokestown House Demesne in County Roscommon…

  • Shabby Boat

    Shabby Boat

    Vintage, crackled, shabby paint effects on an old clinker built rowing boat in the harbour at Helvick, located in An Rinn within the Irish speaking Gaeltacht na nDeise area in County Waterford, Ireland.

  • Model to Actress…

    Model to Actress…

    While Sharon’s quintessential red hair and beauty undoubtedly helped her to get modelling roles, she had other ambitions. Some time after the portfolio shoot, she mentioned my pic of her draped in muslin brought her to the attention of casting directors in her burgeoning film career. Anyway, back to Sharon: she made her screen debut…

  • Shabby Door…

    Shabby Door…

    From the venerable door of the President, to the Pollack like, shabby chic of the old door to a deserted cottage at Faugheen, near my old home village of Bunmahon in Ireland’s County Waterford.

  • Venerable Door

    Venerable Door

    Autumn tinted Boston Creeper winding around the door of the President on the campus of University College Cork, reminding one of the adage “education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom”

  • Every Leaf is a Flower…

    Every Leaf is a Flower…

    the impression given when vines in the commune of Saint-Chinian develop autumn tints around a quintessential, pink, French farmhouse; a spectacle that’s been a regular event for some 25 centuries.

  • Liverpool Folk

    Liverpool Folk

    “Liverpool One” shopping centre has taken over part of the city centre featuring remnants of old warehouses that served the south docks, and flattened sites that as kids, we used to call “the debris” – remnants of World War Two’s Blitz.